'Medical AI Firm' Newble AI Secures Seed Investment from FuturePlay

Newble AI, a startup developing diagnostic and analytical solutions for brain diseases, announced on July 16 that it has secured a 400 million won seed investment from FuturePlay.

Newble AI was founded by Co-CEOs Sungjun An, a professor in the Department of Radiology at Gangnam Severance Hospital, and Jihoon Kim, a professor of medical physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology. The company is developing high-precision diagnostic support solutions by combining clinical experience with AI technology for medical imaging.

The company’s first core pipeline to commercialize is 'Braincura', a brain CT-based precision automated brain volumetry solution. Traditionally, measuring brain volume has only been possible through MRI scans, but Braincura automatically analyzes brain CT images using artificial intelligence (AI) to measure regional volumetric changes, thereby supporting the diagnosis of degenerative brain diseases.

Braincura is scheduled for release in the second half of next year. Newble AI plans to expand into university hospitals, general health screening centers, and local dementia care centers, aiming to position Braincura as a screening and side effect monitoring solution before and after new dementia drug prescriptions. With the recent emergence of new dementia treatments such as ‘Lecanemab’, there is a growing need for solutions that can screen eligible patients and monitor treatment efficacy and side effects.

After the launch of Braincura, the company plans to introduce 'SynCura', a brain CT-to-MRI image synthesis solution. This technology synthesizes CT images into high-resolution, MRI-quality images and is expected to improve diagnostic speed and accuracy for patients with acute brain diseases such as stroke.

Sungjun An, Co-CEO of Newble AI, said, “Having witnessed many situations in more than 15 years of clinical practice where patient diagnosis was delayed due to long MRI wait times, I founded this company to solve that problem. I hope that Braincura and SynCura will enable many patients to receive imaging rapidly and accurate diagnoses.”

Co-CEO Jihoon Kim added, “By combining years of expertise in CT and MRI image registration technology with artificial intelligence, we have achieved precision that matches actual MRI examinations.”

Kim Somi, Principal at FuturePlay who led the investment, commented, “Newble AI is a team striving to solve unmet healthcare needs identified directly by university hospital professors, leveraging high-quality, scarce data suited to the era of AI. With outstanding manpower that perfectly merges clinical and technical expertise, we especially value Braincura’s potential for practical commercialization in the fast-growing market for dementia diagnosis and treatment. This was a key factor in our investment decision.”

With this investment, Newble AI plans to actively pursue domestic and overseas medical device regulatory approvals for Braincura’s commercialization, expand technology verification (PoC) for screening and dementia care centers, enhance the AI models for the next pipeline SynCura, and recruit specialized personnel.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.